Wicked Diving At It’s Best
Back at Wicked Diving we said our goodbyes to less than half of the guests because eleven of us were on board for another three daze. J My dive group didn’t change much; we lost Andrew and gained www.chasingPhil.com. We still had the lovely Jesna from Slovenia, Theo from Australia, and myself hailing from a confused past and now a very competent photographer, Phil with us. Phil took his monster camera and lights on most dives for some excellent close-ups of whatever struck his fancy. Chris Dyer was head of the next three-day trip to the Similans and we had dived together before, I wanted no other although Inge, Jess, or Line are A LOT prettier and as knowledgeable and possibly more in their area of expertise. I liked Chris’s style on our last round of dives three months prior, he was steady, slow, and if a person was low on air he was more than happy to pass over the octopus to his tank and keep everyone in the water for an hour if possible. Every single guide and instructor would do the same. The lesson is that we are all learning and some learn quicker than others but no one should suffer an education. Enjoy it.
I’m going to say this only once and I mean it whole heartedly; there is chemistry that makes a trip better than another, not to down play one over another but chemistry, you know what I’m talking about. I don’t understand the details myself but when I heard that Tom, Inge, Line, Jesse, Chris, and Hampus were on board I knew we as guests were in for a treat no matter what happens under water. Let me introduce you to a Wicked staff.
Tom is nothing short of a great diver with a passion for his trade no matter where he needs to go to get it. When off-season comes he is most likely looking for another place to dive. I recommend Lembongan, Bali with www.bigfish.com.
The beautiful and talented diver, Inge with a strong will, a vegetarian for life and true to her beliefs. Inge is a curious photographer herself and I’ve seen stacks of her material about the Wicked Dive shop. She is a music person like me and I was more than happy to give her music I had to make her smile one day. That is Hampus to her right giving an awareness talk about the depleted shark population in the Andaman Sea and virtually around the world partially due to eating Shark Fin soup that is actually very unhealthy due to concentrated amounts of mercury in the bigger fish, such as sharks.
Line, wow, where do I start? The Unicorn/Pegasus, if they were around today she’d be riding them or talking to them. 7 languages, ukulele, focused, she’s a full package of knowledge with a witty sense of dry humor. Be careful and think about what you say before it spills out of your face. Respect is due.
Jesse, US born with a nomadic past. Plays a mean guitar in the later hours under the moon light, sings, smiles and altogether focused on the ocean as they all are. She doesn’t like mornings but she can pull a smile out of a beanie hat at hello.
Chris Dyer, Ohio, basically born in the water diving in his early teens and relentlessly diving. Apparently his last camera gave up before he did and so he had to get a new one out of KL, Malaysia. Many of the shots in this blog and the last blog are his. He’s under water and I’m shooting from above. I find Chris to be one of those that can chameleon across the board and make things happen. Willing to give insight without being condescending, none of them have this characteristic, they are all willing and happy to help or explain.
Hampus. Hampus is Hampus. There are really no words for this young lad that would explain his high energy and belief in himself that I could lay down. I watched him and listened to him with great pride knowing there is another generation transforming into talent. Forest is also in this category but from the previous trip; he’s a Banana Slug, team mascot, from Santa Cruz, California. Good guy.
The Captain took us out of the harbor, paid homage to the boat spirit and lit fireworks to fend off any evil spirits we may have hanging around. With that settled we went out in a breeze to the Similan Islands and anchored up a little before midnight. As we left the harbor Chris and crew offered motion sickness tablets to those in need or in question and gave a run down of the boat, safety features, minor rules of respect of others and dinner was served.
Not changing my ways I slept upstairs on the top deck under the stars, with salt air and a breeze for a blanket; Tom, US and Glenn, A BRITISH MAN; I screwed up in the last blog and called him a Aussie and got called for it. This is a mistake I should never have made listening to his stories and knowing him as a partner in a half rack of Singha. Anyway me, the BRIT that historically sent all the ‘crims’ to Australia and another Yank, Tom, slept above deck as well, buried in beanbags and afloat. After the first night Jess drew a crowd of listeners to her guitar and song. Line had my attention with a German song I think; it actually might have been Spanish, where ever. She played her ukulele and sung a song about two grapes that fell in love and spent their formative years trying to figure out how to become one in love and in the end the farmer picked the grapes and smashed them all together with his feet and the two grapes made love and became fine wine. That’s what I got out of it. A’sante.
My alarm was sunrise and a cup of tea or two before anybody else began to stir. It’s the most beautiful time of the day and Captain got up at the same time and motored over to Anita’s Reef for our gear check dive. We had thorough safety briefing followed by then a dive briefing and into the water we went.
Most people wear wetsuits but the water isn’t ‘That’ cold to me. The standard temps range from 25 in the cold and an average of 27 C. But on almost every dive there was what is called a ‘Green Monster’ that looked like a lime green colored fog bank on the move carrying 25 C water and made most dive guides alter their course out of pleasure and not pain. The green Monster would pass for the most part or stay put as we swam ahead or out of them back to the warms.
Our second dive site is called West of Eden and the water temp was 27 C for the most part and our third dive was Turtle Rock where Chris Dyer took a great shot of a solo Harlequin Shrimp. Apparently what they do is drag a starfish into their crib and eat a leg and then move on to another leg while the last one grows back and so on. Nice image, eh? We did a few granite swim threws and I recognized others I had done in the past. All in all it was a dive like no other. Whilst on this dive our dearly beloved snorkel guide, Line, descended on us to say hello. We’re at 17 meters and she’s free diving. What an angel.
The following day, a day of four dives including a night dive was an early wake up for the lot. We were told more than once to pay special attention to our decompression time and stay within a safe range, above 10. If your DC got round 10 it was time to shallow up or just stay above your group by 5 meters, there’s lots of ways to sort it out and keep you safe. If you go to zero or below you don’t dive for 24 hours and that my friends just won’t do.
During the day and in between dives the upper deck became a place to dry your suit and find a beanbag in the shade and take a nap. I’m not much of a nap guy or sleeper so it was a photo op I couldn’t pass up. Again I didn’t do the night dive, I enjoy the quiet on the boat more.
We dived Elephant Rock and Christmas point for the second dive and then came this third dive of the day, my favorite by far, we dove 3 Trees. Someone every dive has to go find out which way the current is going so the Captain can drop us off on the right side of it and expect us on the other. The verdict was in and we all plopped into the water in two groups. But looking at the fish facing in the opposite direction Chris realized there was a problem. We were drifting out to sea into the big blue. We went straight to the bottom, hit the deck and swam into the current for about 5-7 minutes using a little more oxygen than expected but we climbed the slope until we got picked up by the island’s coastal tide current and we began to drift the way we were intending. I’d breath in and rise over a coral outcrop swarming with fish and exhale and drop down and skim over the sand in between. Chris spotted an eel not well hidden. The eel moved out and we agreed, he was quick in the open. Our dive still ended up about 54 minutes from plunge to surface and we had covered more than a kilometer, more like a mile ( (1 kilometer = .6 mile, 10 kilometers = 6 miles, give or take.) I have drift dived in Borneo, Sulawesi, the Philippines, and now Thailand. This rates among some of the best dives I’ve had. Thanks Chris.
Since 11 people had been on the 1st 3-day trip Chris changed the night dive site and I still wasn’t keen. I took a shower, shaved, and enjoyed the night watching the lights in the water move about. There were actually a couple other boats doing the same thing but hey, what did I care. I was in the right place at the right time and I am in the Similan Islands for bloody sake. Ha. Heaven is not far from these shores.
The sunset gracefully dove into evening with the stars and wind coming down and smiles brimming from all of us. Jess took center stage on the top deck with an assortment of tunes from Johnny Cash to the Black Crows. The boys were drooling with live music. She had a lot of fun throwing out the random song of another time. A few stragglers kept the fire burning, clinking cans, playing cards, and assorted games.
We motored back to Koh Bon for our last two dives the next day and many of us were excited because it has everything from high biodiversity to the weird little critters many divers over look at first or don’t know what to look for. The more I dive the more exciting the little creatures become and yeah I want to see the big ones too like a whale shark or a tiger in Nepal but everything in time. I’m going back to both so stay tuned and enjoy the ride. Some things are coming that you should all pay attention to if you’re interested in the world today.
I think 8 people got their Advanced Diving Certificate on these 6 daze. JThe two French boys, a woman from America with Thailand heritage, and a bunch of others but I want to say congratulations to the two French boys and their parents for allowing the boys to grow.
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